Australian anti-doping expert Robin Parisotto claims that the first case of a cyclist being charged with doping using his blood profile as evidence is expected to be prosecuted in the next following months. The International Cycling Union (UCI) has been continually developing blood profiles of its professional cyclist by obtaining thousands of blood samples over the past years.

Canberra scientist Parisotto who also sits at the UCI panel supervising the anti-doping program said that more than 30 suspicious samples had been analyzed and there was sufficient evidence to track a number of riders who have doping violations.

Parisotto said that they are still collating results at the moment but he expects that the UCI will be taking action against some cyclists in the next few months. It really seems that the decisions about whom to prosecute are alarming.

The profiling of the blood samples was specifically designed to identify any cyclists using illicit performance enhancing drugs or any other methods that manipulates and the blood to improve endurance. Parisotto said that suspect samples usually have high haemoglobin levels, or unusually low levels which would indicate that a cyclist was extracting blood to be re-injected during competition.

Parisotto also said that, there also are current discussions on which are the strongest case to pursue. There are said to be a handful that the UCI can confidently follow up but Parisotto believes that in some cases the results are quite strong and the athletes will have a hard time explaining them. And this first cycling case will be a test on the use of this new method in identifying drug cheats.

According to Parisotto, there was a fewer number of suspect samples than he would have expected if the program had been established in three or four years earlier. He says that, there is more of an effort being made now to get rid of the cheats and for him, some of cheats are really getting nervous. Right now the risk of getting caught is becoming much greater and they are starting to worry about what is in their blood.

Monitoring indices include red blood cell parameters (hematocrit and haemoglobin), EPO and other physiological measures that should be very stable in an individual athlete over time. Parisotto also talks about monitoring of the responses of particular genes to doping drugs as a very interesting development.

Robin Parisotto, the scientist who developed one of the first tests for the blood booster EPO in the lead-up on the last Sydney Olympics, is also currently working on the next tool in the sports anti-doping war – the genetic profiling.

According to the doping expert, the technology is ready to administer gene profiling on blood test. He also said that any use of blood doping will show up in the changes in the athlete’s gene activities.

All the laboratories need to do is to simply chart the abnormal changes that the drugs make to the blood and genes of the athlete.

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